IT Dept Asks Tax Practitioners To Register Entities Separately

Barely a fortnight after GST was implemented, some taxpayers have reported that GST portal is mixing up their data with others, a "mishap" for which the I-T department blamed tax practitioners for registering multiple entities simultaneously.

The Mumbai division of CBEC in a circular said some cases have been brought to its notice wherein "taxpayers are complaining that when they are logging into their account using their login credentials, they are diverted to some other's account on GST portal, and the data of another taxpayer is displayed in that account."

These, the tax department said, are the cases where the registration or enrolment of the business entity has been done by the same tax practitioner. GST: These Companies Are Cutting Price For Products

"This happens when a tax practitioner opens multiple windows on his/her computer in the same browser for different taxpayers. The data while filing up the application form resides in the cache memory of the computer, and such mishap happens," it said.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) asked all tax practitioners not to open more than one enrolment or registration case at one time.

"After completing one case, clear the cache memory of the computer system before initiating second registration/ enrolment process," it added.

GST, which was rolled out from July 1, replaces plethora of taxes like excise, service tax and VAT, and transformed India into a single market.

So far, over 69 lakh excise, VAT, and Service Tax assessees have migrated to the GSTN portal and nearly five lakh new registrations have happened under GST.

The finance ministry has already asked businesses to register themselves by July 30. If a business has a valid PAN, email ID, and a mobile number, then it can file an online application on the common portal https://www.gst.gov.in/ and get registered for GST.

On the separate issue of registration for SEZ units and verticals of businesses on the same PAN, the circular said tax payers should use different mobile number and email IDs for each business vertical.

This would help maintain the uniqueness of the numbers in the system as PAN remains the same for a business vertical.